Build good links: free guide to SEO basics

Want to outstrip your competitors and take over the world? Or would you just like to have a website that appears in relevant search results?

You probably just need more links.

Discover how to build good links with The good link guide (link opens a handsome PDF in a new tab).

Or read it all here:

The good link guide: build better links to your website

Links are good. Links bring people to your website, and they tell search engines that your website is popular. Link-building is one of the primary tasks of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). There are many ways to get links, but it’s important to understand the elements of a link so that when you get a link you know how to make it a good link.

When assessing links, search engines consider:

Location. How good is the site containing the link? Is the linking site relevant to the site being linked to? How prominent is the link?

Content. What is the anchor text of the link?

Location

Not all links are good. If your website has a hundred links from illicit or disreputable websites, then search engines will put your website in the same category.

Once you’ve found a good website to give you a link, think about where your link will go. A prominent place on a popular page is worth much more than a lowly link in the footer of an obscure, rarely-visited page,

For example, links from web directories are easy to obtain, but they’re much less valuable than a home page link from a highly-regarded blog. A highly-regarded blog that’s connected or relevant to your website is even better.

Anchor text

Anchor text is the words that makes up a link. In this link: Jam Jars the anchor text is Jam Jars.

When search engines scan web pages, they read and follow links. Because my link to the website of Freeman & Harding has the anchor text Jam Jar, search engines assume that Freeman & Harding has some relation to Jam Jars.

This is a crucial point. Use your keywords in anchor text.

Anchor text example

Good link: View professional range of hairdressing products

Bad link: View hairdressing products

The good link’s anchor text contains relevant keywords. The bad link is a wasted opportunity, unless you are hoping to appear high in search results for something as generic as products (which would be insane).